October 8 Photo Assignment: A view from our (unnamed) road

Before we arrived, I often wondered what our neighborhood would look like. Would it be urban? Suburban?  Dar es Salaam is a major city of about 4 million people, so I tried to visualize how an area half the size of New York City would look.

Now that I'm here, I still don't know how to categorize our area.  Although we live in Dar, we are quite far from city center (maybe 7 miles?)  It is a very sprawling city.  We're two turns off a major, two lane, paved road with shops, but our own road is unpaved and filled with tons of ruts.  Garbage lines the roadside, and occasionally we pass cows grazing.

Our first turn greets us with two gaudy billboards advertising liquor.  Alcohol in Africa is very interesting - it seems in many ways to be a split between teetotalers and alcohol abusers.  We are in the abstinence camp due to the cost!  Is it wrong that the wine-derful world billboard makes me think of Amy?

Here's a view of a typical African back road - palm trees, garbage, half-finished houses, and every property surrounded by a high security wall and gate.

This road turns to serious mud when it rains...causing our white car to be caked in red mud.  Yuck!

Gate, sweet gate, with our very welcoming razor wire.  This shows the closest thing we have to an address.  Knight Support, the security company that protects our home, refers to us as unit 107 G, Mbezi Beach.  No idea who Jose Wewe is (although "wewe" actually means "you" in Swahili!)